The Pyramid Chapter 11

THE TEAR OF GOD RA

“I summoned you,” she said softly. “I’m glad that you thought enough of me to come.”

He remained silent. It was the only thing that he could do. No one was supposed to have enough presence of mind, or of breath, even, when spoken to by the goddess, to reply unless expressly ordered to do so.

“Enter. Don’t be afraid.” Then, reading his thought: “We’ll forget all about what happened over in the pyramid.”

He suspected that she was lying, but he felt a certain sense of relief at the prospect of no immediate violence. As the statue swung back noiselessly into place behind him, he had another moment of panic. It was as in that room in the pyramid—the same sultry darkness permeated by the woman’s disquieting aura. But Queen Netokris had gone back again to her position at the opening in the floor. He followed her, stood over her as she knelt, looking down.

“I’ve been admiring your work,” she said simply.

“Not mine,” he managed to articulate, “but the work of Metemsa, the Osiris.”

He held his breath. The queen did not answer, made a pretense of being absorbed in what she saw; but he could tell that his remark had been unpleasant to her.

“Kneel down here beside me,” she resumed, after an interval, “so that you may also see. So we are to have it within a week? Do you know what I intend to do?”

“The ways of the goddess are inscrutable, O Isis.”

“I intend giving a banquet here to celebrate my ascension to the throne. A marvelous banquet-room!—Just think—far below the level of the Nile!”

“May your reign be long!”

“See, I shall have my dais there at the end where the gilders are at work. Ah, to think that I shall have to sit there all alone!”

Menni hesitated. The conversation was again taking a perilous direction.

“There are princes—unworthy of you, yet young, handsome, royal—who would gladly—gladly—”

Netokris had swayed slightly in his direction until her shoulder was touching his. He dared not move. Had he been able he would have given no sign, but his voice faltered in spite of himself.

She laughed, drew back again.

“Poor, foolish boy,” she said, with just a touch of bitterness in her tones. “I didn’t make you come up here to be tortured. Listen, I was moved by your faithful work, by your steadfastness. I have put you to the test. I have discovered the truth about you.”

They were looking at each other through the dim light that came up through the floor. In spite of what she was saying, and the smile on her painted lips, Netokris might have been some beautiful deity of deception and hate.

“What you just said about the princes of the land is true,” she went on. “Not one of them but would dishonor the memory of the Osiris by seeking to take his place. You, alone among them, have shown yourself to be faithful to the great memory. See what I am giving you as a sign of my favor.”

She had taken a ring from the index finger of her right hand—a heavy circlet of gold in which was set a large sapphire. Even there in the twilight it glowed dark blue with a light all its own. The greatest sapphire of all sapphires!

Menni had drawn back with a movement of almost superstitious dread.

“The Tear of God Ra!”

“Yes, the ‘Tear of God Ra.’ Netokris laughed. “You know the history of it?”

“I heard it when I was young.”

“That the great God Ra wept this single tear when Osiris and Isis were married and sin on earth began! Take it. Wear it. And remember this—that when, some time soon, your life is in danger this will be the talisman to save you.”

Menni still hesitated.

“But those who use it to save life—their own lives—thereby sacrifice things dearer than life, so I’ve heard,” he panted.

Netokris had seized his hand in hers, had slipped the ring over his little finger.

“There are many things about the Tear of God Ra, my friend,” she said, “that you can never learn, except by wearing it. You wear it. I command you. Wear it night and day. When you go to sleep may it bring dreams to you. When you awaken may the dreams become visions; and may dreams and visions both be of—of—”

She leaned quickly forward, caught his face between her hands, and kissed him.

He was still kneeling there as she leaped quickly to her feet and made her way over to the hidden door. There came a flash of yellow light from the corridor outside, then darkness again.

Menni swore softly to himself, thought of Berenice, of the far places of the world. Couldn’t he and she escape together? He had been honest in his administration of the palace; but he had been able to put a hundred or so gold collars aside in case of accident.

He looked down at the jewel on his finger. And that—should he be able to get out of the empire with it—would be worth many ounces of gold. But merely to look at it was to feel his courage melting out of him. Did it carry a curse? Did it mean that the wish the queen had expressed in putting it on his finger would some day come true?

It bit into his flesh like a pencil of ice. He started to pull it off, then desisted as he remembered the queen’s command. There was still a fighting chance for life and happiness; but he was not fool enough to delude himself with the belief that that chance was brilliant.

He went back and up to the outer air and called two of the swiftest runners of the guard. They belonged to the company of scouts who kept in advance of the swiftest chariots whenever the Pharaoh, god or goddess, went abroad that way.

“Find out for me,” he commanded briefly, “where I can see Baknik, high priest of Ammon, without delay—the pyramid or his house.”

The men dashed away with the naked grace and speed of greyhounds. Scarcely had they gone than another messenger came up—this one of another sort, a eunuch from the apartments of the queen.

“From Isis on earth,” said the messenger as he brought his face to the ground and held up a piece of folded papyrus.

Menni took the message with a steady hand, in spite of a premonition that fate was adding but another stone to the tomb she was preparing for him. He was right. What he read was this:

Thou hast the tear-drop of Ra.
Keep it well, for there draws near the night of the tear-drop of Isis.

For almost a minute Menni stared at the message, reading it over and over. Not being a priest, he had never been much of a reader. But there was no mistake.

Then comprehension burst upon him and he staggered a little. The night of the tear-drop of Isis!

That was the night that the Nile began to rise—the one night in the year when Egypt offered a human sacrifice—to the river in supplication of a full flood, as the forerunner of a prosperous harvest.

And the offering was always a maiden—young, pure, virtuous, like Berenice!